It’s true. A number of people told me this weekend that they would be going to Squaw Valley next weekend for the Squaw closer. Apparently there’s a whole breed of people out there that don’t pay attention to the resort’s Facebook pages or the various ski blogs that reported on Squaw’s early closing. That’s fine I suppose – they can show up at Squaw and enjoy a cookie from Wild Flour and enjoy the bluegrass festival.
The rest of us will be enjoying the closing weekend at Alpine Meadows, once again holding out to be the last resort open in Tahoe. (That Summer Shred WROD business at Boreal just does not count for any season 🙂 ) It’s nice to see that being the last Tahoe resort open is still an Alpine Meadows trademark; it keeps many of us coming back.
Sure, we would all love it to have Alpine stay open until Memorial Day – but there just isn’t any way that will happen this year. Cooler temperatures last week helped preserve the snow. That’s not the case this week. Here’s the remote sensor temperatures at 4 pm today:
Base: 56°
Mid-slope: 69°
Summit: 58°
It will take some serious snow farming to keep the mountain open for the last three days this weekend. From the sounds of it, the effort should be worthwhile. We’ve heard a lot of people say they would be at Alpine Meadows this weekend. When the technophobes find out Squaw is already closed, they’ll probably show up too.
The weather should be perfect, if not too warm. There’s music on the schedule and plenty of tailgate BBQs planned.
Mammoth was great :0)
Over the weekend in Tahoe City I saw more paddleboards than skis on tops of cars going through town. Think everyone is heading into Spring mode. As for snow farming I suggest Alpine check out Dance Floor as there seemed to be these huge piles of snow just waiting to be used down at the lower parts that needs the snow. Was a good season marked by some of the best grooming ever seen at Alpine. Can’t wait to see this crew unleashed next year when they can do the “tidy bowl” at Alpine Bowl for instance. Or seeing Sherwood groomed from Powerline all the way to F Tree. Now that would be neat to see.
LOL – One of those paddleboarders was my wife. I talked to a couple of AM staff that suggested that clearly the park snow is the “reserve” for snow farming this week. It’s really not unusual. The same thing happens nearly every season. I think the grooming was great this year given the lack of snow. The Tidy Bowl was a great move in a season that offered more chunder days than pow days. I would most definitely not want to see any more extensive grooming on the Sherwood side. If we ever get a normal season again, I hope they don’t dumb down the mountain too much,
Hope your wife was wearing some neoprene booties as that lake water is still not that far above 50 degrees in the shallows. Think I’ll wear my farmer john 3 mil just in case as hypothermia is a nasty end result of falling in…Would love to see UA do a end of a season interview with Scott S. or one of the higher powers to be at KSL regarding the future of Alpine. No question in my mind they will continue to dumb down Alpine, and as much as some of us protested it, the Firing Line sadly will probably be on Dance Floor in the future. Future of the features on Terry’s Return? Hot Wheels replaced or not?
It would be interesting to do a Q & A with Scott or Andy W. Sadly, there’s two other jobs in my life that keep me from being a real investigative reporter. When Jim Kercher was the GM at Alpine, he would seek me out and talk to me about what was going on. It sure made it easier to release accurate information.
Hot Wheels will not be replaced this year..we have already reported that. Terrain parks? Well…we’ll see what happens. In a way it worked out okay as it became a great way to avoid the crowd on Charity and Werners.